Operations Research

We identify new solutions to transportation problems, on the ground, in the air, or on the sea, transport of people or goods, whatever the mode. We focus on technical solutions, but also on their impact on the system as a whole. We are also interested in the interactions of the transportation systems with the land use, the economy, the environment, etc.

Incorporating competitors' behavior in demand based optimization models

The starting point of this research project is the general framework developed in the SNF research project 200021_165636 entitled “Incorporating advanced behavioral models in mixed integer linear optimization”. The project aims at formulating explicitly the complex interaction between the supply and demand actors. We hypothesize that the decisions of supply actors (such as capacity, assortment, and price) are highly influenced by the decisions of other actors, through competition within the market. In this project, we will therefore explicitly consider multiple operators that compete for the same pool of customers. Each operator will take the supply-side decisions that optimize its performance function (e.g., maximization of revenue). Non-cooperative game theory is commonly used to model such oligopolistic competition. We plan to investigate how to integrate these games in the already developed framework. In this context, the objective will be to analyze the concept of equilibrium, that is, stationary states of the system where no actor has an incentive to change his/her decisions.

Principal investigator

Michel Bierlaire

Project manager

Virginie Lurkin

Sponsor

Swiss National Science Foundation

Period

November 01, 2017-October 31, 2020

Collaborator

Stefano Bortolomiol

LaTeX description

Design of a car-free city center: a fringe parking system with accelerated moving walkways

This project is conducted on a fellowship "The EuroTech Postdoc Programme". A car-free city center is a valuable solution for decreasing traffic congestion and CO2 emissions, and improving active mobility and quality of life. To achieve these goals, one of the biggest challenges is the relocation of parking places scattered in the inner district, which cause cruising for available parking as well as car inflows. A possible solution is a “fringe parking” system, which groups parking into a limited number of spots on the border of the district. However, this may decrease the level of accessibility moving the parking away from the final destinations. The key idea of this research is to use “accelerated moving walkway” (AMW), a novel transport system, in combination with a fringe parking system to design a car-free city center with high accessibility. The goal of the research is to propose and identify the optimal configuration of a fringe parking system with AMWs, as a solution to city centers. The main methodologies are network design optimization and traffic assignment.

Principal investigator

Michel Bierlaire

Project manager

Yuki Oyama

Sponsor

European Commission

Period

October 01, 2018-September 30, 2020

External collaboration

Constantinos Antoniou (TUM)

LaTeX description

Capacity building program in urban mobility and transportation

The purpose of this project is to develop graduate curriculum in urban mobility and transportation. The relevant courses of this curriculum will be available in MOOC format. This program is a collaborative project between Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and Urban Transport Systems Laboratory (LUTS) and Transport and Mobility Laboratory (TRANSP-OR) at EPFL.

Principal investigator

Michel Bierlaire

Project managers

Yousef Maknoon, Riccardo Scarinci, Yuki Oyama

Sponsor

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

Period

September 01, 2016-September 01, 2019

External collaboration

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

External collaboration

LUTS

LaTeX description